Monthly Archives: January 2012

Live-blogging Iowa caucus day–Gingrich on incentive

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Live-blogging the Iowa caucus coverage–

Time in a bottle

12:51 They presented Newt Gingrich just now, speaking on the stump in Burlington IA, mainly railing against negative ads. How many of you here are fed up with all the negative advertising? he asked his audience, getting some hands raised up. –So go out and vote for me, and you will be casting a vote against negative ads, a vote that could change political campaigns in this country.

Noble sentiments. They come oddly from a guy who started the day and seized CBS’ attention, this morning, by repeatedly calling Romney a liar. To be precise, it was not Gingrich who used the word liar. He just (repeatedly) answered yes, when Norah O’Donnell asked him whether that was what he was calling Romney. Schieffer helped Gingrich dig the hole deeper, following up with that old eleventh-commandment question as to whether he would support Romney as the nominee. Gingrich said yes, leading to softball Qs as to whether he would really support a “bald-faced liar” as Schieffer put it. Still yes. Gave Gingrich another chance to say something disrespectful about Obama. These people are tiresome.

Back to Gingrich’s Burlington appearance–

Having stated his opposition to negative campaign ads and to donations in the millions from Romney’s millionaire friends, again, Gingrich segued to criticism of federal judges. They’re too strong, he said.

Again, he might be right in some sense. Federal judges can get away with a lot, including selective punishment and caving in to political pressure. (Something the right wing is none too shy to apply; ditto federal lobbyists.) Gingrich comes across as something of a macht haben recht type himself, though. Hard to see him as the right messenger.

Side note: It’s funny how few of these sanctimonious Christian-right-cultivating political candidates cite the Sermon on the Mount. Reminds me of Tim Tebow. A quick physical sign of his religion may have First Amendment protection. But there is nothing particularly devout about it. As all Southern Baptists were taught, following the Sermon on the Mount, it is best to pray in the privacy of your own closet.

The hypocrites, as the Speaker of the Sermon on the Mount pointed out gently and with mild urbanity, have their own reward. You–the genuinely devout–are seeking yours elsewhere.

Speaking of pieties, Gingrich also proclaimed today that he wants to “incentivize the work ethic.” He wants to incentivize invention, to incentivize innovation.

This is the kind of statement you get from a major party that seizes every opportunity to oppose

  • a living wage
  • raising the minimum wage
  • health benefits on the job
  • retirement benefits from working
  • prosecution for fraudulent managers
  • prosecution for endangering workers’ lives
  • prosecution for Wall Street executives
  • limiting bonuses for malperforming executives
  • education in music and mathematics
  • support for the arts and letters at every level
  • physical education and healthful exercise
  • Et cetera

Gingrich, of course, puts it differently. In his spin, the other party–the Democrats– “want to take money from everybody who’s successful to give to everybody who’s failed.” Possibly his term ‘failed’ refers to everyone who has been foreclosed on after unemployment, and in turn everyone who has become unemployed as a result of the worsening economy.

It is beyond incredible that our publishing industry rewards this kind of Orwellian claptrap with mega-bucks book contracts, and that our infotainment industry rewards it with mega-bucks speaking engagements.

In Gingrich’s particular case, the buzzwords innovation etc probably his ongoing willingness to accept money from Big Pharma, which has a vested interest in preventing prescription medications from (ever) becoming generic and thus affordable.

Gingrich and Bachmann in particular seem to share Gov. Branstad’s penchant for using stump appearances and interviews as communiques for potential donors.

Not illegal, just unsavory.

Live-blogging Iowa caucus day

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Live-blogging coverage of the Iowa caucuses: First voting of the new year, first voting in 2012, as we are often reminded.

Romney in Iowa

The unspoken refrain here btw is ongoing apologies for repeating things that have already been said, sort of like a continuing objection by defense attorneys in a deposition hearing.

Wish the network and cable commentators felt the same way. Some items from left-over Xmas stockings:

  • as ever, some network analysts are trying desperately to home in on their default analysis for every election cycle–the scenario boiling down to an establishment front-runner and an insurgent challenger from the wings of the party. This narrative has been applied to every GOP race and most Democratic races in adult memory. It seems not to be working this year, but that’s not stopping them.
  • commentators, guest interviewers and guest interviewees alike are by-and-large working to boost Mitt Romney. We’re seeing it right now, on the day of the caucuses, especially. The Reverend Mr. Franklin Graham weighed thus in last night on CNN, not endorsing any candidate including Romney but saying repeatedly that “We are not voting for a pastor-in-chief. We are voting for a commander-in-chief.” He used the word “qualified” more than once, too, generally shorthand for Romney among supporters. Graham said nothing to boost any Christian-conservative candidate against other candidates.
  • Trying to shoehorn this election season into a winnowing-the-field narrative. So far, the winnowing has not occurred.
  • Trying to figure out whether to characterize this primary season as a marathon or a sprint. Both are cliches. Neither illuminates much of anything.
  • Avoiding discussion, in a political context, that would shed light on what Republicans in Congress have actually done this year.
  • Legitimizing dreadful policies and mean statements.
  • Leveling out the differences between the parties, downgrading or burying the Dems and rehabilitating or dignifying Repubs.
  • Refusing to say directly that the GOP top crust in office is trying to break the middle class. You don’t hear that. You do hear NBC’s David Gregory saying, with straight face, that Mitt Romney has a message for the middle class.

Not once do regressive tax policies get brought up. Only infrequently do the costs of GWBush’s two wars, tax cuts for the wealthy, and unbridled incompentence and fraud on Wall Street get brought up.

Simple, but accurate–almost every Republican in federal office is working for one overarching trend: rich-get-richer.

Regardless of the wishes of ordinary people who voted for them, now being terrorized by rhetorical hammering on ‘the debt’, the function they fulfill in public office is to benefit the few who will hire/retain them in parasitic functions such as consulting and lobbying, once they leave office.

It is no demagoguery to boil down their message for the middle class: Drop dead!

Speaking of winnowing, Sarah Palin is trying to get into the game. Palin is calling on Huntsman and Bachmann to leave the race.

I see Huntsman (counter-intuitively) as vice-presidential material for Romney. None of these candidates has a very good shot against President Obama.

[added]

Commentators also tend to position ‘electable’ versus everything else including every kind of merit. There is more than a kernel of truth to the observation that politics is not for the perfect. But the gross differences between better and worse do not necessarily boil down to a difference between character and being ‘electable’. The large media outlets do not have a good track record when it comes to picking the electable candidate, anyway.

Of course, they have been on the receiving end of a lot of obfuscation themselves. Bush and Cheney did not run on a platform of assaulting the Middle East abroad and the middle class at home. If they had, presumably they would have been perceived as less electable even by the corporate media outlets.

Iowa caucus day, and Gingrich calls Romney a liar; Live-blogging the coverage

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Live-blogging the coverage on the media-saturated Iowa caucuses–

7:40 a.m. We’re not off to a good start. Newt Gingrich just appeared on CBS’ The Early Show, pitching for himself, and called Mitt Romney a liar.

Gingrich

The exchange with guest interviewers Norah O’Donnell and Bob Schieffer started ordinarily. Gingrich boosted himself, then criticized Romney’s super-PAC ads against him, then characterized Romney’s positioning as less than candid.

O’Donnell: “Are you calling Mitt Romney a liar?”

Gingrich: “Yes.”

O’Donnell, flapped at getting a direct answer to an oversimplified question, pressed Gingrich to repeat. So he did. Schieffer ditto.

For the record, there is a difference between characterizing a statement as false, or even a lie, and characterizing the person as ‘a liar.’ This is a central distinction in ethics.

In politics on television, no difference. Gingrich could have said, “No. I’ve done no name-calling,” and gone on to make the distinction between lying–something everyone has done at some point–and throwing out the whole person. Of course, throwing out Romney Gingrich’s objective.

The GOP in Iowa; Live blogging the coverage

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GOP in Iowa –Live blogging the coverage

 

Gingrich

The last 48 hours leading up to results from the Iowa caucuses, and “every second counts” according to CNN. That principle does not apply to air time. Yesterday evening, minutes after saying repeatedly that CNN would be bringing you the candidates’ words, live and unfiltered, Candy Crowley cut away just when Ron Paul was heading to the podium.

CNN had been actively touting its direct presentations of the candidates, saying It’s as though you are there. You too will hear the candidates, just as if you were in Iowa. Et cetera. The audience out in televisionland, however, never did get into the room to hear Paul speak to his live audience. A split screen a little while later showed where each candidate was, Rep. Paul speaking at the podium, one visual in the graphic among six. No audio. Instead, more commentary from Crowley—repeating summations of the up-and-down already amply reported–more commentary from guest pundits, and a couple quick cut-aways to Newt Gingrich, in interview, and to Michele Bachmann on the campaign trail. Admittedly some humor value was there to be had. Bachmann said more than once, aiming in the general direction of the mic thrust into her face, that “thousands” of Iowans were switching to her. Bachmann has repeatedly declined to say that she would support the Republican nominee for president, whoever s/he was, always declaring that she will be the nominee. It could have been the diplomatic answer but was styled verbally with typical Bachmann ham-handedness. She did the same kind of thing when asked questions about the war, saying repeatedly, “I’m a mom.” Then she pushes herself as the one “genuine” candidate in the mix.

Crowley interviewed Paul on air today, with clips aired more than once. Since most of the air time in the interview went to Crowley rehashing attacks by opponents—mainly Gingrich–against Paul, the interview was not equivalent to live coverage of the candidate speaking. Paul’s answers tend to be terse and to the point, one source of his appeal. So Crowley ended up doing more of the talking in the interview.

 

Santorum reported as surging

As of this writing, Mitt Romney tops the polls in Iowa, followed closely by Rick Santorum and Ron Paul. Santorum is aiming fire at Paul. Paul validly responds that the overwhelming majority of Americans want us out of Afghanistan, as he does.* Gingrich and Rick Perry are closely fighting for 4th-5th. Michele Bachmann is consistently at the bottom.

One hesitates to be a mind reader, but somehow that last item feels—what is the word?—unsurprising.

One good thing about listening to television is that it makes you think about the language we use.

A phrase that should be retired, whether it comes from the candidates or the commentators, is “At the end of the day.” I am influenced in this wish partly by the late John Weiglein, a good man who wished the same thing.

Another candidate for retirement, aside from Gingrich and the rest: “If you will.” (Rick Perry is already retired.)

“If you will” is a phrase used when putting forth something a bit doubtful, or something not established, or something a bit risky. The phrase is what one offers when stumped for a final answer or a precise formulation, compelled by the exigencies of the conversation to provide an interim suggestion. It softens the overreach. It is a social gesture to reassure the hearer that one is not overreaching, or at least not wantonly or for the fun of it. It is not a phrase to be used when one is saying exactly what a thousand other pundits have already said, or when one is describing something in perfectly ordinary words. Example: “Michele Bachmann’s coming in last in GOP polls is unsurprising, if you will.”

 

*As does this writer.